Kinetic Design was a class that helped to emphasize the impact of intuitive motion in design. We were tasked with making things that moved, a simple enough assignment, but that motion had to play an important role in the function of the object and not just be a pointless attribute. Learning to balance form, function, and motion over time was invaluable and a necessary element of design education.
Kinetic Design
As an assignment in the importance of tooling and consistency we were tasked with creating a set of steel chairs. The goal was to create a tool that allowed us to make multiples of a product that are the same. My classmate and I made our tool out of mdf and we cut our steel in 1/2" intervals to create curves that didn't pinch the steel at the apex of the bend. This method took far longer than traditional bending techniques but we wanted to ensure the interior diameter of the tube steel remained consistent throughout.
Fabrication Tooling
As our first MIG welding assignment we were tasked with creating a lighting fixture that used the entirety of a 24' piece of 1" square tube steel. My classmate and I created this chandelier. We were to leave the welds ungrounded to prevent anyone from hiding bad welds. I'm happy to say we didn't have many we felt needed hiding in the first place and then went with an industrial aesthetic though the using a an Edison bulb and steel chain to hang it.
Chandelier
Here is a progression of me learning the basics of shading to more complex renders done with SketchBook and Photoshop.
After learning more complex rendering techniques I decided to tackle replicating a few more recognizable products to see how they held up as well as creating a few new products of my own.
Digital Drawing
Product Rendering
Photo Reference
My Drawing
